Tag: pregnancy

I am beyond thrilled to have my story featured on the Love What Matters website!!! A chance for my story to be spread further in hopes of reaching anyone who may need to see it! Check it out! I’m so excited!!!!

Every fall I find myself feeling the same way I did when I started chemo. That nauseous feeling….just that general uneasiness that came with putting poison in your body. Without fail….every fall…..I’ll have that feeling for a bit. The same thing happens in the spring….but for a very different reason. Every May I would find out I’m pregnant…..and morning sickness would come with it. I have 3 beautiful daughters….so looking back it wasn’t so bad, but my 3 miracle daughters didn’t come easily….and the journey was also filled with heartbreak. And it’s crazy….that I can actually show the timeline of my pregnancy journey with pictures from when I would go to relay for life.

I was given the go ahead to try for a family after my 5 year mark. I wasn’t sure how it would go, there were no guarantees…..but we would try! I had gone in to menopause during treatment, but seemed to come back to normal when it was done.

The first time I found out I was pregnant…..I can’t even describe the excitement we felt! Like all our dreams were coming true and cancer hadn’t done anything to me! We were beyond thrilled and even put together special ways to announce it to our families. We were making plans, going over names, dreaming of the future. It was just perfect. But I should have known…..life had already shown me what happens when you think everything is perfect and nothing can go wrong.

I was extremely happy to tell my oncologist’s office….this was their victory too. This was a big deal, and they were also so happy! When I attended the Relay for Life that year…not only did I get to celebrate with all those people from the office, but hear my oncologist speak! He’s a brilliant man and he even made a little comment about me….of course didn’t mention my name….but it meant a lot. The pic below is the moment I realized he was talking about me.

Sadly……that day…..I miscarried. It was ironic that it happened that day…..and it was beyond devastating. I figured I’d done something wrong….no matter what the books said…..I was sure I did this. Why would something like that happen after all we had gone through? It was so extremely unfair and heartbreaking. I don’t know what our families did with the items we gave them to announce our good news….but thankfully I’ve never seen them again. We actually tried again really soon, got pregnant, and miscarried again that same year. Then I took time off. It was so hard to prepare my heart for the possibility of losing another baby.

So we waited. Until the year our first child would have been born. Like I said….we never had any trouble getting pregnant. It was keeping the pregnancy. We found out that my progesterone was not staying high enough during the first trimester. So they put me on a supplement. A magic pill that “kept me pregnant”. That’s how it felt, and let me tell you…..that is the only pill I’ve ever taken regularly and not missed a day. It was hard to stop when they told me I was safe…..and I took them until they ran out.

So my third pregnancy….I was so scared to go to Relay. It’s funny how you associate things or circumstances with what you have gone through. The irrational part of my brain was sure that Relay was causing me to miscarry…..I KNOW THAT IS CRAZY! But….you know how it is. So yes….I was terrified and actually went to the bathroom every five seconds (it felt like) to make sure all was well. This is us that year……along with my amazing oncologist and his also amazing wife…..the medical team that saved me and cheered me on!

And in February 2008 we welcomed our miracle baby to the world. It was a journey that was so difficult, heartbreaking, devastating, and overwhelming. I know that we are extremely blessed to have the outcome we did….not everyone is as fortunate.

Getting to bring her to Relay the year she was born felt like a huge victory! Like laughing in the face of evil cancer……like….here she is. We did it. You didn’t steal this from me. That survivor lap was the happiest one I’d taken since my first.

We were blessed with 2 more daughters along the way, and even though our last was never part of our Relay life, (as we stopped attending), it was special to be able to bring our girls to the event and celebrate the entire journey and the way life has turned out. I didn’t know if I would survive cancer. I didn’t know if we could have kids. I didn’t know if we would be able to have our own kids.

Everything we have gone through has shown us just how precious life is. How blessed we are. Every single day with these dorky crazy mini versions of us is just pure happiness! We just celebrated Mother’s Day…..and admittedly I had to stop and cry when I typed that. I’m so extremely blessed to be a mom….my girls are the most amazing and beautiful thing that I’ve ever had a part in creating…..and even though my journey to becoming a mom as so hard…..I can look back and say it was so worth it.

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